Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Slow Dance
Last Friday, as The Big Dance was getting underway in the NCAA basketball tournament, I was engaged in a dance myself—auto ballet on a California freeway. I was not adequately warned about Friday afternoon rush hour (a misnomer by far) traffic, and so I found myself crawling and cursing along at about 5 to 10 miles an hour for over three hours.
My travelling companions were alternately amused and alarmed at my response to these driving conditions. They described me as having road rage, being obsessive-compulsive, super competitive, and having a Type A personality, some of which I unequivocally deny, but some of which I shamefully acknowledge. In order to keep myself sane, I began dancing with the oblivious drivers of the surrounding vehicles.
The white truck emblazoned with “Izzy Printing” on the side was my first partner. It was in the far left lane, and seemed to be moving ahead slowly. I was in the lane immediately right of Izzy, with two more incredibly leaden lanes to my right. But it seemed that every time I almost caught up to Izzy, it pulled just a car length or two farther ahead.
Therefore I concluded that the far left lane was moving at a faster clip, and at the first opportunity, I edged my Crown Victoria rental (a very nice ride, and the only thing remotely pleasant about this tale) into the fast lane. Now to the right of me was a green van, RBGIRL1. “We’ll just see who gets ahead,” I gloated. Dismayed, I watched the lane that I had just abandoned surge forward, while my current lane floundered in a standstill. The green van nonchalantly took the lead.
I fumed, and stayed in the far left lane long enough to decide that it was currently the sluggish lane, and I cut back into my initial lane. To my left was now a brown sedan, NDN PHD, whose driver was, no doubt, a very confident female professional. Still, I would not let her outdo me. In vain, I tried to keep in the same lateral plane, but to my chagrin, the left lane began once again to move faster than the lane I was in. “I’m a jinx!” I blurted to my passengers. “Whatever lane I’m in moves the slowest!” I decided my new strategy would be to stick with one lane, and stay put. I planted my sights on the limo (myLimoworld.com) now in front of me, and concentrated on keeping the distance between us inviolable.
It began to rain. One of my passengers fretted about missing our exit, which we calculated was about 30 miles away. “Don’t worry!” I responded, as I laughed a little hysterically, and gripped the steering wheel even more tightly. “We’ll have at least a couple of hours to make the lane changes!” A motorcyclist whizzed by on my left between me and the car in the next lane, dangerously close, startling me, and then irking me with his audacity.
By hour two my sciatica screamed with the indignity of being kept in the same position for much too long. “You will NOT cut in front of me!” I raged as a road crew truck tried to nose into my lane in front of me. I stomped on the accelerator and refused it entry. As I cackled with glee, my passengers exchanged worried glances with each other.
And so it continued. There were more “dance partners”: the blue GT with the cocky white racing stripes, the black Stealth which spewed a stinky black exhaust, pinpointing its location and ironically ensuring it would not live up to its name, the sleek white tour bus with no identifying logos, in which, we imagined, lounged famous rock stars off to their next gig.
Finally, this tediously lengthy slow dance accelerated in tempo. The vehicles sped up to 30, then 40 and 50 miles per hour. My auto dance partners disappeared down off-ramps, raced far ahead, or lagged behind me. I breathed deeply and settled into a comfortable pace in a middle lane. This drive had been uncomfortable, stressful, and downright tortuous. I was quite ready to shun big city life if only because of such daily traffic snarls. My sleepy little town may not be life in the fast lane, but what a blessing never to be encumbered with that kind of slow-down. And that realization, in the long run, may be the best thing that came out of this journey..
My travelling companions were alternately amused and alarmed at my response to these driving conditions. They described me as having road rage, being obsessive-compulsive, super competitive, and having a Type A personality, some of which I unequivocally deny, but some of which I shamefully acknowledge. In order to keep myself sane, I began dancing with the oblivious drivers of the surrounding vehicles.
The white truck emblazoned with “Izzy Printing” on the side was my first partner. It was in the far left lane, and seemed to be moving ahead slowly. I was in the lane immediately right of Izzy, with two more incredibly leaden lanes to my right. But it seemed that every time I almost caught up to Izzy, it pulled just a car length or two farther ahead.
Therefore I concluded that the far left lane was moving at a faster clip, and at the first opportunity, I edged my Crown Victoria rental (a very nice ride, and the only thing remotely pleasant about this tale) into the fast lane. Now to the right of me was a green van, RBGIRL1. “We’ll just see who gets ahead,” I gloated. Dismayed, I watched the lane that I had just abandoned surge forward, while my current lane floundered in a standstill. The green van nonchalantly took the lead.
I fumed, and stayed in the far left lane long enough to decide that it was currently the sluggish lane, and I cut back into my initial lane. To my left was now a brown sedan, NDN PHD, whose driver was, no doubt, a very confident female professional. Still, I would not let her outdo me. In vain, I tried to keep in the same lateral plane, but to my chagrin, the left lane began once again to move faster than the lane I was in. “I’m a jinx!” I blurted to my passengers. “Whatever lane I’m in moves the slowest!” I decided my new strategy would be to stick with one lane, and stay put. I planted my sights on the limo (myLimoworld.com) now in front of me, and concentrated on keeping the distance between us inviolable.
It began to rain. One of my passengers fretted about missing our exit, which we calculated was about 30 miles away. “Don’t worry!” I responded, as I laughed a little hysterically, and gripped the steering wheel even more tightly. “We’ll have at least a couple of hours to make the lane changes!” A motorcyclist whizzed by on my left between me and the car in the next lane, dangerously close, startling me, and then irking me with his audacity.
By hour two my sciatica screamed with the indignity of being kept in the same position for much too long. “You will NOT cut in front of me!” I raged as a road crew truck tried to nose into my lane in front of me. I stomped on the accelerator and refused it entry. As I cackled with glee, my passengers exchanged worried glances with each other.
And so it continued. There were more “dance partners”: the blue GT with the cocky white racing stripes, the black Stealth which spewed a stinky black exhaust, pinpointing its location and ironically ensuring it would not live up to its name, the sleek white tour bus with no identifying logos, in which, we imagined, lounged famous rock stars off to their next gig.
Finally, this tediously lengthy slow dance accelerated in tempo. The vehicles sped up to 30, then 40 and 50 miles per hour. My auto dance partners disappeared down off-ramps, raced far ahead, or lagged behind me. I breathed deeply and settled into a comfortable pace in a middle lane. This drive had been uncomfortable, stressful, and downright tortuous. I was quite ready to shun big city life if only because of such daily traffic snarls. My sleepy little town may not be life in the fast lane, but what a blessing never to be encumbered with that kind of slow-down. And that realization, in the long run, may be the best thing that came out of this journey..
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Wonderfully brilliant writing! I almost felt as though I were sitting in the Crown Victoria with you, inhaling black exhaust and haranguing you on your small town driving tendencies. Speaking of being from a small, rural area, I find it interesting to talk about driving with big city types. When I tell them that in high school I spent hours riding buses to remote destinations in Wyoming to play basketball games and run a track meets, they often cringe. “I could never do that. The schools we played were like 20 miles away.” What they fail to consider is that drivers in their beloved cities often spend as long as it takes to drive 150 miles in Wyoming to drive the 20 miles to the other school’s gymnasium! Who am I though, to question one’s desire to live in a land where a three bedroom house costs 2.5 million dollars, the air I EXHALE probably wouldn’t pass tailpipe emissions standards in most states, and when I wake up in the morning, I might find my white family minivan covered with some lovely Crip gang graffiti?
What a delightful way to describe, and deal with, rush hour in the big city. Driving the long miles between small towns along empty country roads invites its own amusements. But in the end, your blood pressure is lower, your back does not ache, and when you saw another driver you exchanged a smile and a wave...not swearing and the finger.
Each city has it's own character and charm. You just have to enjoy it with several million other people and remember that if we were all plumbers there would be no one to fix the roof.
Welcome home, again!
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Each city has it's own character and charm. You just have to enjoy it with several million other people and remember that if we were all plumbers there would be no one to fix the roof.
Welcome home, again!
<< Home
